


the rest of us just live here

by Juniperly



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types, Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Falling In Love, Friends to Lovers, Loneliness, M/M, Mutual Pining, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Pining, Romantic Soulmates, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Touch Hunger, Touch-Starved, Touch-Starved Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia, Touch-Starved Jaskier | Dandelion, Unrequited Crush, Unrequited Love, figuring out how to exist, if you don't have homemade happy endings, it will be okay though don't worry, so don't say I didn't warn you I guess, storebought is fine, this is kind of a twisted version of soulmates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2021-01-07
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:28:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26174224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Juniperly/pseuds/Juniperly
Summary: Not everyone gets a soulmate, not everyone is destined for a happily-ever-after.Jaskier and Geralt find one anyway. Eventually.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 4
Kudos: 63





	1. the moon and her sons

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! Welcome. Title is from Patrick Ness' novel, thanks Mr Ness.

Jaskier will never love the moon again.

The stories say the name burns when it appears, it turns your heart to ash and dust, until there’s nothing left a scrawled ink tattoo, a single name on your wrist.

The moon rises on your nineteenth birthday, and you fall in love with someone you’ve never met.

Jaskier had spent an entire lifetime dreaming about this moment. 

But there is nothing on his wrist. There are no letters, there is no fate, no future. 

_What could possibly be so wrong with him? What did he to deserve this? Was he born broken, unwanted, useless?_

The wind is whistling around him. He’d wanted privacy, as was custom, and found himself in a vast field, long grass and weeds rippling around him. 

It is a difficult thing, to process, at nineteen, that you will be alone forever. How is that fair? Only nineteen, he hadn’t even had time to fuck it up, and he was already unlovable.

He tries to imagine his parents’ faces; horror stretching their eyes into caricatures of shock. 

They found each-other within a summer. Birthdays only a week apart. 

Only the damned are soulmate-less. 

* *

Jaskier leaves home the next month. It is spring, and the world is coming alive, ground soft and crumbling beneath his feet, the sky wide open.

He couldn’t bear the stiffness at home, the court gossip, the stares and whispers and japes. Polite japes, of course, but japes no less. He wished then they would say what they meant, say _worthless_ instead of _misfortune_ and _broken_ instead of _unlucky_. 

No matter. 

It’s not so bad. His life is his own. He is obligated to no one. It’s a blessing. 

They say Oxenfurt is beautiful this time of year. 

* * * * *

Geralt had not anticipated a mark. The chances of being soulmate-less are perhaps one in a thousand, but Geralt knows better than to trust in fortune.

His life had departed from the conventional the day he was left on that road.

Witchers without marks are desirable, Vesemir had said. So, it was not a pity, but an advantage. He could fight without fear, without obligation, he could give himself to the path like those with a soulmate never could. 

He was doing a service. The continent needed people like him. And really, who would have wanted him? 

The older witchers separated him from the other boys, after that. 

_“Come, Geralt.”_

_“You’re destined for better things than soulmates, Geralt.”_

_“Drink this, Geralt. Keep it down, there you go.”_

It was fine. He would be happy, or if not happy, fulfilled. He had the path, and there was Roach, who came and went, in all her iterations. He had a life.


	2. Chapter 2

Jaskier had expected high-browed academics at Oxenfurt. He wasn’t expecting the drunk students.

It was mostly drunk students.

Maybe he hung out with the wrong crowds. 

One of his classmates, Alka, sat down at the bar table, elbowing another to make room. “Did you guys hear about the wraith?” She said. “The one in the house up near The Fox.”

“The Grey Fox Inn or the other one?” Another girl asked.

“The other one. I heard he went mad with jealousy after his wife cheated with the baker. The one in town, you know her, with the hair.” 

“Who?” 

“Helene. She’s a sweetheart. But that’s not how wraiths work. They have to die first.” Jaskier said, absently. He had taken a course on monsters in his first semester and had found it surprisingly interesting. No real-world application of course, but university was all about broadening the mind.

“Like you would know.” Alka laughed. “I wonder if they’re going to hire a Witcher.”

“I didn’t think Witchers were real. I haven’t met any.” Her friend said.

“Of course you haven’t, you don’t know any men long enough to know their profession.” 

Jaskier grinned into his cup. 

A Witcher. That would be interesting. He liked his classmates, but he didn’t really have anything in common with them. Most had come to Oxenfurt to meet their matches, or their parents wanted them to receive some pretence of education before they inherited land.

The talk soon turned to complaining about various professors, and Jaskier escaped onto the street, night air fresh in his lungs. He had about a year left before he graduated, and he didn’t know what his plans would be after that. His home, with pitying eyes, wasn’t tempting, but he could only stay in Oxenfurt for so long before someone asked about his soulmate. He rubbed the leather cuff on his wrist reflexively. It wasn’t unusual to hide one’s soul-mark, and it brought less suspicion than a blank wrist.

When he fell asleep, he dreamt of wraiths and witchers.

==

The inn went quiet when Geralt walked in. He grunted for a room, slapping the coin onto the bench. The innkeeper scowled. “We don’t take your type here.”

Fuck. 

He slept in the stables with Roach. 

He would leave the city as soon as he could, after he found the wraith. Oxenfurt was full of drink students and pretentious academics and the constant noise and music grated on him.

His muscles panged. He considered finding a brothel girl to knead the skin, but that would mean more people, more noise, more strangers and judgemental eyes and the hassle of hiding his wrist.

He wasn’t a heartbroken youth. But it twinged slightly, to see his fellow witchers find their matches, sometimes amongst each other, sometimes with the pretty, patient village girls or even with the loud troubadours. There was a certain understanding between soulmates that Geralt would never experience, and he had to live with that.

==

Jaskier bought bread from the baker girl the next morning. 

“How are you doing?” He said. Helene’s shop was bustling only a few mornings ago, but since news of the wraith had spread throughout town, it had become eerily empty. “Is your, uh, girlfriend okay?”

“You heard?” She smiled wearily, carefully arranging the pastries. “Leoni’s fine. She’s a bit upset about the whole, evil ghost ex-husband in her house thing.”

Jaskier lowered his voice. “No offense, Helene, but I’m pretty sure you have to die to become a wraith, and last time I checked, Leoni’s husband was alive. A shitty merchant, but alive.” He whispered. “Did something happen?”

Helene chewed on a strand of curly blonde hair. “They had a fight… he found about me. We knew it was wrong, but she wasn’t happy, and she had my mark, and he was going to hurt her…” She bundled his bread carefully. “I keep thinking maybe if I went to him, and apologised, or something, it would be okay, and he could find peace.”

Jaskier stared at her. “Are you serious? Absolutely not. You’ll die.”

Helene looked away. “Yeah. Yeah, you’re right, I’m being stupid.” She shook her head. “That’s five crowns.”

==

The sun was setting, casting the streets into the vague twilight gloom. The locals had given him directions to the abandoned house, where the wraith apparently once lived with its wife. Geralt had got the sense there was some kind of scandal, but it wasn’t his job to sort it out. 

A blonde-haired girl came quickly walking down the street. She looked around furtively, and Geralt hastily stepped behind a wall, not eager to deal with yet another human, and watched as she slipped quietly into the house.

Fuck.

He ran after her, pulling out a sword, and heard screaming from the second floor. Geralt burst into the room, where the girl was about to be cornered by the wraith. He jumped in front of her, blocking the blow. The wraith screeched and lunged, slashing at him, and he hit it, blasting it with signs until it dissipated with a flash of light. 

He turned to the girl. She was sobbing, a red flush staining her cheeks. “You alright?” He said, awkwardly. Stupid.

The girl nodded, desperately. “Thank you, thank you, oh my gods, thank you –”

“It’s fine.” He grunted. “Let’s get out of here.” 

She mumbled her thanks again, and walked back into the centre of the village, promising him that if he ever came to Oxenfurt he was welcome at her bakery. 

Geralt sighed. Humans complicated matters.

The mayor didn’t pay him in full the next morning, of course. Accusing him of endangering a local citizen. Like he’d forced that girl to watch him fight a wraith.

It was often more trouble than it was worth to protest, so he took the coin, and spent it all the local brothel, and tried not to think. 

==

“Did you hear the baker girl tried to fight the wraith?” Alka whispered to him the next day. The professor was discussing the same chord progression for the third time that week and Jaskier was trying very hard to pay attention.

“You’re not serious?” Jaskier whispered. “That’s ridiculous. Helene’s not that stupid.” 

“I didn’t think so, but she was telling the whole town this morning about how the Witcher saved her life too. I saw the Witcher this morning and he looked grumpy.” 

Jaskier frowned. “Don’t witchers always look grumpy?”

“Apparently the mayor didn’t pay him in full. That’s what the brothel girls were saying.”

“Gods. At least the wraith is gone.” He turned back to the teacher. “What was the Witcher like?”

She shrugged. “He was more human than I expected. Nice hair.”

Jaskier gets drunk that night, again. Maybe he has a problem. He ends up singing sea shanties at the top of his lungs. He’s the last one awake too, and he sits alone in the window as his classmates pass out on the floor of a room they rented – easier than wandering back through the city in various states of inebriation. 

He sees a figure passing in the street below, silver hair and leather armour, and nearly falls out of the window in his haste.

“Hey, Witcher!” Jaskier yells. “I know what you did! You saved the baker from the wraith!” 

The Witcher’s gait faltered slightly, and he slowed to a stop. He looked up at Jaskier, golden eyes burning. 

Jaskier struggles to keep his words coherent. “I know you can hear me! You were wronged by the mayor! The whole city should celebrate your bravery!”

“Go get some sleep, kid.” The Witcher drawled. “You’re drunk.”

“The entire city will know what you did, I promise. I’ll write you a song!” 

The Witcher snorted and continued to walk away.

“What’s your name, Witcher? You have to give me a name! I must know.” 

Jaskier’s head spun with drink and the sky seemed to be brighter than it should, and all he could see was the witcher’s moon-white hair. He leaned forward, just holding onto the ledge with one hand. The wood, old and weatherworn collapsed, and he felt the rush of panic a moment too late as gravity took hold, and the air rushed around him so briefly that there was no time, not even a moment left – 

He blinked. The Witcher had caught him, his arms steady and warm. There was a metallic wolf necklace around the witcher’s chest, and his pale hair dangled above Jaskier’s eyes.

“Geralt.” The Witcher rumbled. “Go to sleep.” He dropped Jaskier unceremoniously onto the pavement and walked away.

“Thank you, Geralt, White Wolf!” Jaskier called.

==

Six months later, Geralt hears a bard sing. Toss a coin to your witcher. Something fluttery happens in his chest. He is called White Wolf in the next town.

He kills the drowners and fucks a local girl and doesn’t think about Oxenfurt again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no excuses.
> 
> This is not a reasonable or sensible plot, but I'm tired and this is the first writing inspiration I've felt in months aha.

**Author's Note:**

> literally every fucking fic I write is "jaskier and geralt are sad and don't know how to communicate" so like. that's what we have coming up.


End file.
